Understanding Xi Jinping’s ‘Key Minority’

Staffers prepare a leadership academy meeting for Communist Party cadres in Shanghai.

Associated Press

To mark the 94th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party on July 1, a high-profile event took place in the Great Hall of the People the previous day. Chinese President Xi Jinping met with 102 “Outstanding County-Level Party Secretaries” from around China who had been selected from among 2,800 of their peers to receive commendation in Beijing.

It has been 20 years since the Party last honored outstanding county Party secretaries. The renewed attention to the performance of county leaders shows that Xi is relying on local officials to play a pivotal role in implementing his program. The realization of the visions and goals of his administration depends on the commitment of these cadres.

Xi’s talk of the key minority and the commendation of model county Party secretaries have shone a spotlight on leaders of the most important administration division in China–the county. But strangely, the public knows very little about how these officials do their jobs on a daily basis, and it is especially difficult to find information on their work environment.

One of the 102 “outstanding county Party secretaries,” Chen Xingjia, who heads the Party committee of Badong County in Hubei Province, appears to be more willing than the average Chinese official to wash his government’s dirty linen in public. Several speeches Chen made at various Badong government meetings — together with a recent report in the newspaper Southern Weekend — provide a glimpse of the challenges and risks faced by one self-proclaimed corruption fighter.

Southern Weekend reports that both businesspeople and local officials sought to give Chen bribes or gifts: after he became party secretary, Chen said, one businessman left a bag containing HK$200,000 in cash in his office, while another tried to give him two gold bullions. At a meeting of the Badong People’s Congress earlier this year, Chen urged local officials to stop the practice of gift giving. Even after such a public speech, Chen told the media that there were still attempts to present him with gifts, and that some other senior Badong officials also continued to accept gifts and bribes.

In 2014, Badong cleaned out 216 phantom employees on the government payroll. As Chen suggested at a meeting of the county’s Discipline Inspection Commission, it was hard to imagine that leaders of government units were unaware of the existence of the phantoms in their units, but they were afraid to take action.

Resistance to Chen’s anti-corruption initiatives came not just from below but also from above. While investigating a poor-quality infrastructure project, Chen says he was advised by a superior to go easy on the contractor. According to Chen, the official told him: “You are the county Party secretary. If you say there is a problem, then there is a problem. If you say there is no problem, then there is no problem.” Chen told Southern Weekend that he ignored this advice and that his relationship with the official, who he did not name, was damaged beyond repair.

Chen’s anti-corruption stance has led his colleagues to worry about his safety. The local police chief told Southern Weekend that he had installed an explosion-proof device on Chen’s car and that he hoped that Chen would be assigned another job soon, for the sake of his safety. County government staff do not let Chen go out alone after dark; he is always accompanied.

At the same time, Chen’s case illustrates that a county Party secretary has considerable power and discretion in deciding how his or her county is administered — in particular the power to decide who gets promoted and who doesn’t. In a speech in April, Chen mentioned that an official who had been nominated for promotion said in private that he or she preferred one post to another. After learning about this private remark, Chen told the Party’s Organization Department that it would be sufficient ground to veto the official’s promotion. “The Communist Party’s posts are not for you to pick and choose,” Chen declared, according to a transcript of the speech posted on the local Party committee website.

Looking at how a county Party secretary as exemplified by Chen executes his duties, one can understand why Xi Jinping is attaching so much importance to the “key minority.” Despite all the talk of the rule of law, how well China is governed is still largely determined by a small number of men and women in key Party and government posts. They are essential in deciding to what extent laws and discipline are enforced and policies set in Beijing are implemented on the ground. If they follow the rules themselves and are also willing to go out on a limb to keep their subordinates in line, then corruption may well be manageable.

The question is whether – and how — Xi and the Party can ensure that such key positions will always be filled by people like the 102 model county Party secretaries. Until there is a good answer to this question, democracy and rule of law may still be safer bets for China’s leaders in the long term than relying on the key minority, despite the latter’s importance at present.

Yiyi Lu, an expert on Chinese civil society, is currently working on a project to promote open government information in China. She is the author of “Non-Governmental Organisations in China: The Rise of Dependent Autonomy” (Routledge 2008).

Note: An earlier version of this post stated that Badong had cleaned out its phantom employees in 2004. This version has been corrected.